Chat, share information with social reading apps

April 3, 2012 : JAYNE AUGOYE

JAYNE AUGOYE explores social reading apps that enable members of online communities to communicate easily

Social reading is a relatively new concept that is fast gaining popularity globally. Since people want to share what they have read with others and receive instant feedback about their thoughts and ideas, social readers come handy in forming social communities.

Technology has helped to advance the cause, as it provides a natural habitat for the activity to be cultivated. The benefits of social reading are numerous and not limited to the fact that it broadens the reader’s experience.

According to social media experts, it takes the reader out of the book and encourages him or her to make connections, draw conclusions, summarise thoughts, and ask questions in conversation with others.

Social reading is a way to connect with others and explore thoughts and ideas that might have gone unnoticed in a solitary reading of the text.

Beyond that, the experience helps a book become memorable; it can be a conversation starter between two new friends, or a way to develop online skills like reviewing, recommending, communicating via social media platforms, and exploring what it means to be part of a community of shared interests (both on and off line).

Thankfully, there exist a lot of social reading apps that make it easy for a first timer to come onboard.

BookGlutton is an example. This online bookstore and community for reading groups allows online communities to chat inside the book they are reading and annotate as they go on. The platform enables writers to read and discuss each others’ work. To do that, all they need do is convert it to the Epub format, the same format used by Apple’s iBooks software, Stanza for iPhone, Aldiko reader for Android, and many other e-reading applications. Then targeted discussions about each paragraph in order to hone their craft can begin.

In a classroom setting with a virtual component, reading online can allow collaboration and text-specific discussion. Teachers can attach study questions right to paragraphs to encourage close study of language. Students can easily point out parts of the text they want to discuss.

BookGlutton also has a Web-only book publishing platform that allows publishers upload, set price, and track sales, using the Epub book format.

Members can also automatically sign in with Facebook and invite some friends, create virtual groups to meet up inside a book. They can have discussions and chat about any chapter in the book. And with shared notes feature, they can comment on any paragraph, and also get notified in return, when their friends respond.

Bookwormr is a tool for people who love books. It allows users share, score, review books and see what everyone else is reading. As a completely free service, book lovers can list the books they are reading, have read and would like to read. They can also write reviews and give each book a score. When reading more than one book, the plugin randomly chooses a different book to display on each page request.

ReadSocial, is a set of social reading plugins that publishers can use to add social features to e-books uploaded daily. Basically, the service adds social features to your content quickly and easily. By grabbing a few lines of code and dropping it into an iPad app or a website, you can offer groups and shared comments, right on top of your content, no matter where it is.

For example, if one person is reading your content in your iPad app and another is reading it on the Web, you can make a bridge between the two and start a conversation.

Just like previous sites, Kobo Pulse takes reading to a whole new level as it also shares ideas on passages and books with other readers. Because it tracks the reader’s activity, its indicator gets larger and brighter as you reach pages with more comments and reader activity. Members can also follow conversations and see what other readers thought of what you just read.

It also allows the users to share ideas they like or dislike and add comments on passages and books, and even comments made by other readers. After reading a book, they are expected to rate it, review it and send it to Facebook or simply just read and share to the social media site.

If you ever wondered how long it takes you to read a book or how much of your library you have read, the app helps track your reading statistics with the Reading Life button.

Additional features include the availability of over 2.5 million books, newspapers and magazines, over I million free downloaded titles, and a Free Kobo eReading apps for smartphones, tablets and computers — Kobo automatically saves your place and syncs your bookmarks across devices.

According to lovelyreader.com, reading is all about sharing as wisdom flows from authors to readers and from readers to friends. It adds that never in history has shared reading on thoughts been made easier.

As such, readers can share highlights and notes in real time while reading all the annotations will be listed on the website so friends can comment and discuss.

All highlights, questions and notes created in the book will be collected and listed on the page, so that friends can comment, discuss or “like” it, sharing thoughts and reading pleasure with friends could not be easier. In the process, they can meet and make new friends and connections.

In other to easily track their reading progress for each book or collections, the site’s progress bar will update the user as they proceed.

It allows the user to get a better understanding of his or her friend’s reading status, find new books they added, comment on new annotations they just created, or even explore friends of friends in a connected way.

Besides, it is possible to create or join reading groups while a list provides a quick and easy way to manage all groups joined, add or remove books to the group, or even create a new group in seconds.

To expand their circle of friends, they can share interesting new books that have been stumbled upon on facebook, Twitter or other social websites.

Also, finding birds of a feather is very easy and fast too. In lovely reader, you can join existing reading groups, or create your own group and invite friends. Inside the group you can add books to the group library, discuss books in the forum or meet other group members.

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